[Peace-discuss] FW: UN's Call for Torture at Guantanamo Bay to Cease Lacks Power - Analysts - Sputnik International

[Boyle, Francis A]

Francis A. Boyle
Law Building
504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.
Champaign IL 61820 USA
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From: Boyle, Francis A
Sent: Thursday, March 01, 2018 8:56 PM
To: sectns.aals at lists.aals.org
Subject: UN's Call for Torture at Guantanamo Bay to Cease Lacks Power - Analysts - Sputnik International


https://sputniknews.com/us/201803021062139709-usa-un-guantanamo-international-law/
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - A United Nations human rights group's condemnation of the continued US illegal detention and torture of Ammar al-Baluchi has no mandatory power, but will aid the efforts of US lawyers to shut down the Guantanamo Bay detention center, analysts told Sputnik.
The United Nations Human Rights Council Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) has released its opinions reached at a meeting in November on the illegal detention and torture of Baluchi.
"The Working Group considers that ... the appropriate remedy would be to release Mr. al Baluchi immediately and accord him an enforceable right to compensation and other reparations, such as appropriate physical and psychological rehabilitation," the WGAD assessment said.
US Unlikely to Heed Latest UN Human Rights Call
The US government was unlikely to pay any attention to the conclusion of the UN human rights working group, University of Illinois Professor of International Law Francis Boyle cautioned.
"I doubt very seriously this opinion will make any difference to the US 'Department of War' [Department of Defense] and the Trump administration," Boyle said.
[A hooded demonstrator is seen at a protest calling for the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in front of the White House on May 18, 2013 in Washington, DC.]
(c) AFP 2018/ Mandel Ngan
'Guantanamo Be Closed': Anti-War Groups to Hold Massive Rallies in US<https://sputniknews.com/us/201802031061318669-usa-guantanamo-protests-closure/>
However, the UN body's statement would still have political significance for the ongoing struggle by human rights activists within the United States to shut down the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, Boyle pointed out.
"It will be of use to American lawyers in their continuing attempt to dismantle the Gitmo Concentration Camp and the Gitmo Kangaroo Courts," he said.
Not only was the detention and torture of Baluchi illegal, but it was only part of a long process of actions by successive US administrations that had ignored international law since President George W. Bush first approved the base's use as a detention facility in January 2002, Boyle recalled.
"By operating its Guantanamo concentration camp the United States government has always been in gross violation of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, including therein its Kangaroo Courts. Violation of the Geneva Conventions is a war crime," he said.
War crimes had been committed at Guantanamo Bay<https://sputniknews.com/us/201802011061245120-usa-guantanamo-facility-critics-trump/> on an ongoing and systematic basis, Boyle pointed out.
[This photo reviewed by the US military and made during an escorted visit shows a US naval medic explaining the feeding chair procedures at the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, April 9, 2014.]
(c) AFP 2018/ Mladen Antonov
UN Warnings Over Human Rights Violations at Gitmo Remain Disregarded - Analysts<https://sputniknews.com/us/201803011062101167-un-usa-guantanamo-detention-rights/>
"In the case of Guantanamo and its Kangaroo Courts, where the war crimes have been both widespread and systematic, this constitutes a crime against humanity under international criminal law," Boyle said.
By operating the Guantanamo facility as it had over the past 17 years, the US government had also contravened two major international legal commitments it had signed, Boyle also observed.
"By means of its Gitmo concentration camp and Kangaroo Courts, the US has grossly violated the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, both of which [it] is a contracting party to," Boyle said.


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